Humanist Counter-Theory in the Age of Misandry

Live now on Reddit

Hi. I’m doing my Ask Me Anything on Reddit right now. These are the photos that the “redditors” need to prove it’s really me answering questiosn. My friend Dean will be helping me with the typing. I hope to see you all there–and that you feel free to ask me anything!

About Erin Pizzey

Erin Pizzey is founder of Chiswick Womens' Aid, the first ever refuge in the world for victims of domestic violence. She is a lecturer and advocate, and has authored books on domestic abuse, including the seminal "Prone to Violence." Her latest effort is her autobiography, titled "This Way to the Revolution." She is also an Editor-at-Large and adviser for A Voice for Men on domestic violence policy.

Would have been there but had Quaker stuff to do. Held you in the Light though during Meeting

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

It was so busy it was impossible to keep up with and Erin’s going back next weekend to try to get to everybody who didn’t get answers.

This should tell you an amusing tale: the thread as a whole (not any of the individual comments, just, the entire thread as a thread) got this response:

2,669 up votes 1,469 down votes

There’s an awful lot of people out there who hate Erin. Yet almost none of them were willing to come ask her any questions. I suppose that actually having to talk to the woman who started the international anti-domestic violence movement, and the first internationally-recognized battered women’s shelter, must be very challenging for a lot of the gender ideologues!

Near Earth Object

[wonders to self if the studiers of women got class credit for showing up to down-vote]

TigerMan

I thoroughly enjoyed it and I noted at one point there were over 5 thousand people viewing or participating in the thread!
It was fantastic to read Erins responses despite the odd trolling and downvoting by the usual suspects no doubt.

Aimee McGee

I’ve not had a full read of it – really interesting the bits I have seen. Does it get more trolley to the end, I felt it was remarkably low troll from what I read!

[googles reddit srs] Wow, that’s effed up. So they’re like the anti-Anonymous of reddit? A gang that censors dissent from establishmentarian dogma?

TigerMan

From what I have seen so far that seems a pretty accurate assessment.

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

3,828 up votes 2,561 down votes as of now. They’re swarming in. WHy do I suspect 2,400 of those or so are people who didn’t even read it?

You can smell the fear on these people. The fear and the hate.

Trollish, derailing comments and slander are rolling in too. Did you know we regularly publish white supremacist material here on A Voice for Men? Wow, I had no idea, where’s Elam been hiding that shit?

Denis

A large number of those down votes are also from people who find the topic boring or automatically assume another feminist whine.

“Trollish, derailing comments and slander are rolling in too.”

I know what your talking about, I just can’t tell who is who anymore.

Denis

Let’s play a game: SRS, Feminist or MHRA?

“You only want to be a victim. I am done trying to reason with you. You are stuck in biased mindset, and nothing is getting through to you. I hope you find some help one day so you can deal with what ever bad thing happened to you which made you think the way you do.”

“When SHE calls the police to have YOU removed because you refused to do so of your own volition.”

“Wrong. If the man is the one who is enraging her and he refuses to leave the situation then HE is also to blame for provoking the violence.”

“This from someone who advocates getting a man arrested for DV? Wonderful advice.”

“I hope you never become a counselor for men or families if this is your approach.”

“You just want retribution”

This whole conversation left me disgusted and disappointed. I’ll fill you in on the answer after you’ve made your guesses. No cheating.

TigerMan

MHRA?

TigerMan

The thing is it was a tricky discussion – I observed the subthread as it developed. The issue was what was the best course of action to take if your wife was given to irrational outbursts of rage and violence whilst clinging to your child. In an ideal world when all attempts to reason with her have failed then calling the cops might have been an option but given the biased training they get and the arrest primary aggressor bs it is like to be the husband who gets arrested even if he is actually the victim – thus said husband would not be in a position to return home(because of likelihood of such a woman to demand a restraining order etc) when his wife had calmed down and ensure the welfare of his child. Someone disagreed and insisted the father who was not guilty of being abusive should stand his ground then an argument ensued and unfortunately some of the rhetoric from the one who made a case for the guy to leave on a temporary basis looked uncomfortably close to being like victim blaming.
It was an unfortunate exchange if I may be diplomatic for once!!

TigerMan

Personally in such a scenario I would have documented and recorded as much of the exchange as possible and left her to cool down. I didn’t really see a better option in terms of the best interests of the child or my own given the current systemic bias against men and fathers in such situations.
It would be frustrating as hell to have to be the one that has to step away but I would also recognise that if I didn’t do that voluntarily and try and cover my ass by recording our exchanges I could otherwise find that the gynocentric system had been leveraged against me and not even have the option of returning later!

Denis

I think obtaining evidence and ensuring the child is safe and attempting to remove the abuser from the home is always better than immediate abandonment.

I think (almost) anyone would give the same advice if the sexes were reversed, except for women it’s much easier to leave, call the cops and they’ll be there in 5 minutes with a SWAT team.

Yes that was more than a little judgemental about your motivations.
We should be able to disagree on such things without imputing or assuming malice IMO.

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

That particular guy has a hate-on for me and Kristina because I had an outburst about it on YouTube then apologized and tried to explain my reasoning calmly. Some accepted it, some didn’t. I still for the life of me do not understand how someone cannot see that if a woman is clutching a child and using it as a shield while bashing you, why you would think either calling the police, wrestling the child out of her arms, or just sitting there taking the beating are better outcomes than removing yourself as the source of her rage and coming back and making documentation after you come back. Maybe one of the others is better but in the current legal climate I don’t see how. It’s horrible, because there *should* be better alternatives but right now there *aren’t*, anything else is likely to result in the child being hurt and the man going to jail and then being TOTALLY unable to help the the child.

The travesty is that this is how our system works now much, much too often and it must be changed. But MRAs howling at each other in disagreement over the best tactic in such a horrible situation (the video of which Kristina and I both saw but that guy did not) seems very counterproductive. I’ll extend an olive branch to the guy and just agree to disagree next time.

Denis

I disagree with your position and your advice to abused men.

If you want to discuss it, then do not mischaracterize my position as “a hate-on” and “wrestling the child out of her arms”.

You’re olive branch does not build my trust as much as an honest consideration of the difficulty and risk in all choices rather than a one-sized-fits-all “be an adult and get out” with callous disregard for that man’s consideration for the immediate safety of his children.

Let me put it clearly where we last left off:

DE>Losing my temper was probably the wrong thing to do but if you can’t see that walking out may be dangerous but calling the police is infinitely more dangerous and there ARE no better options.

TJ>Don’t leave your child alone with an abusive and irrational woman. Every other option you offer will remove this man from his child’s life. Leaving the home only sets up a status quo that he will be removed from the home and there is no danger to the child.
Only by actively collecting evidence will he ever have a chance to protect his child from this abusive monster.

Edit: You never apologized.

TigerMan

Okay I have walked into something here with more “history” than I first realised.
I am crap at diplomacy so all I will say is that from what I have seen of Denis’s responses to various issues he comes across as someone capable of a lot of humanity and self restraint – that said so do you.
None of you have malicious intents as far as I can see and in my admittedly simple mind none of you should be imputing any bad intent simply because you might disagree on a certain position. I live in UK and currently although I have seen a lot of evidence of police bias on DV call-outs that is not always the case. Even in the same jurisdiction the reaction and actions of the police could vary. So although personally I think I would choose to leave temporarily – I can also see some merits in the opposite course of action. For example in cases where the mother has been abusing the child outside of the fathers presence it would indeed be risky to abandon the child to the mother in such a case.
So what I am saying is that there are possible nuances here that the different sides of the argument are perceiving but the other side may not.
I am not just writing these words to you Kristina and Denis but to myself also – as I also need to be more careful about jumping to negative judgements of those I am disagreeing with sometimes.

If that’s “what an MHRA looks like” and this becomes policy for giving advice to men, then I prefer the term Men’s Advocate for myself or maybe just a human being that deserves some compassion and understanding instead of bad advice and ad hominen mischaracterizations.

TigerMan

Looking at it from the outside all parties seem to have the best intentions. That said because this is a hypothetical situation that is being discussed each party may be envisioning the same scenario slightly different with differing nuances and emphasis. In such discussions no one can be 100% correct precisely because the situation IS hypothetical.
So I think the best thing here is to learn from this on how to agree to disagree with more grace than was the case before.
Onwards and upwards

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

If you wish to agree to disagree, fine, but continually bringing it up and mischaracterizing what I said or repeatedly attacking the character of those who disagree with you, here or on Reddit, is not in order. I did apologize for attacking your character, now why don’t you either do the same or just stop bringing it up? Thank you.

Denis

I’m going to be there every single time you or Kristina or any other so-called MHRA attempts to give men such very bad advice.

Next time, you two should try to “be adults” about it.

I never attacked your character like you did to me, fuck you for all your lies.

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

I apologized for getting angry and name-calling and you didn’t accept it, and you’ve continued to spout bullshit about it ever since. Even Erin didn’t agree with you, she gave the same advice we did. Should I now say you don’t care about abused men? You seriously need to grow up and learn how to handle disagreement. Take your obsession with me somewhere else, please. I apologize, once again, for getting angry and saying anyone, including you, was stupid, but I don’t apologize for thinking you wrong. Can we leave it at that, PLEASE?

I will wait for a while for that. First I want to give you enough rope to establish clearly enough for anyone what a big fucking crybaby you are being. Your first step in proving that is in saying that this place is an ideological echo chamber.

Haven’t you have been here all along voicing your opinions at will?

Oh wait, when you were told not to make threats here, THEN it became an ideological echo chamber. Right, Denis?

Go ahead and take your childishness to the next level, Denis, unless you can stop yourself and pull your foot out of your mouth.

Totally up to you. I have too much work to do to deal with someone who thinks following people around comments to attack their ideas is a form of debate.

FTFY

Denis

@Dean,

Erin Pizzey also agreed that collecting evidence has actually worked for men.

Leaving the home, only gets men kicked out without evidence.

You didn’t apologize to me. I didn’t have a problem with your angry name calling because they weren’t directed at me, just your mischaracterizations after your apology for angry name calling.

napocapo69

Denis, there is no MHRA template, everyone is responsbile of own opinions.

Regarding your opinion dealing with the precaution “of removing the alleged abuser” from the home (under the presumption of innocence, in bold) I tend to agree with you….but…if the abuse is not proved, then the accuser has to face jail….that’s the only way it can work.

Denis

That’s why the first priority is to collect evidence and not abandon your children.

Peter Wright (Tawil)

Denis,

As someone who has been in the situations being described here let me assure you (and others) that there are more effective non-violent ways to deal with the situation than what you, Dean or anyone else has described – ways i would and have, in fact did prioritise when I was in similar situation. And those methods worked excellently (I got full custody of my kids). And there are two other members I’m aware of on AVfM who used the same method of gaining majority or full custody of thier kids.

What you call the “first priority” re getting evidence is not a first priority for everyone in the MHRM. What Dean calls the first priority is not for everyone in the MHRM. In fact i would drop the word “first” unless you call it “my own” first priority. Thats not to suggest your method is flawed, far from it…. your logic re how to deal with the above situation makes very good sense.

I’m not going to detail the other way of dealing with the scenario that I used, because the sniping here has gone far enough and I’d rather not add more fuel to the conversation. Suffice to say there exist cost-free legal tricks that can work brilliantly.

Lots of valid points being made but lets not assume there is a first priority that fits for everyone… not gathering evidence, nor running, nor fighting back… the nuances are always slightly different and there are always a range of useful responses that can be considered.

Denis

@Peter,

I’ve never suggested fighting back. The writing is on the wall that he will be removed from the home eventually.

If he decides to remove himself, he is making a clear statement that she is NOT a danger to the child. That is maybe true, but maybe not. In effect, he is setting a precedent that will have him removed from the home permanently. That’s why it is bad advice.

His only hope to get him help and her help too, is to collect evidence. That is his only hope of protecting his child from such an abusive monster.

Perhaps you can provide some other options that I am unaware of?

Bewildered

” Standing on the stage and arguing in the early 70s I reminded the women that movements based in hate will inevitably annihilate themselves. One of the early mantras of the feminist movement was to make the personal political. Therefore, those women who had bitter and violent experiences of the first male their lives (e.g. their father) then branded all men as violent and dangerous. They are also what I call the walking wounded. As far as I’m concerned the prominent feminists of the day virtually all had appalling relationships with their fathers. So if feminism grew out of a justified sense of grievance, and created a platform where they did not attempt to heal their own damage, but to project onto all men… so yes it’s very cult like that way. But it’s any cult group that works that way, they all have either a figure they adore or a hate object that keeps them together. And their hate is against men, even when they deny it. ” —Erin Pizzey

THIS SHOULD BE THE AH-HA! MOMENT FOR A NEWBIE TO FEMINISM THE SO-CALLED MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE.
In the light of this revelation it should rightly be called :

A MOVEMENT OF THE DAMAGED ,FOR THE DAMAGED, BY THE DAMAGED.

Only a megalomaniac makes the personal political.

Bewildered

“[–]okwajo 35 points 7 hours ago

I am native american, now let me explain to anyone out there what patriarchy and matriarchy means to us, it is what we call our elders , it means we respect their opinions and they pass their life’s knowledge back to the young, so every time feminists use these words maliciously to benefit their ego, it insults us…Now I cant speak for others, but isn’t this what these title really mean, your Grandparents??? Respecting their place in the family as matriarchs and patriarchs? Dont let the radicals take that away from them. ”

…But damaged white female/mangina brains see Matriarchy as the panacea and locate their Utopia in some nondescript alien culture hoping that people would be too lazy to debunk their nonsense.

Stu

When I was a kid, I used to spend a fair bit of time at my grandparents place, in a small country town full of old people just like them. My brother and I used to go up there often for part of the school holidays. When my mother and father were building their second house, I actually lived with my grandparents for over a year.

My grandmother was renowned as a stern woman. And my grandfather a total saint, and an extremely tough man. Polite, a total gentlemen, a war veteran. A man who worked full time until he was 75yo, and then part time until he was 82yo. My grandmother had a reputation as a battle axe, a nagger. He deferred totally to her. He was one of the strongest, and ruggedest men I’ve ever known, but he seemed to exist totally to provide and protect her.

All of the old couples in that town seemed the same. And all of the women outlived the men, and there were many widows. My grandmother spent the last nine years of her life pining for my grandfather after he was gone. She was a battle axe, and a nagger, but she was no sloth. She kept a wood fired stove all her life, wouldn’t install gas or electric. Also a wood fired heater. She had a huge yard, over half acre, and the grew vegetables and fruit all their lives. She made home made jams, baked, knitted, sewn, made clothes, all of her life. And she was happy all of her life too, until Pa died.

These are women that feminists claim were oppressed, and these are the men they call oppressors. Men who got dragged off to war, while their wives stayed at home and got sent their pay checks. These are the men who died in the trenches at Gallipoli, leaving the women folk safe at home to be the primary victims of war. These are the men who died years before their wives, after working into their 70s or longer, and collecting pensions for a few short years, while their wives inherited everything and collected pensions for many years after they had gone. These are the men that feminists lead you to believe are oppressive monsters, and the woman helpless weak pathetic women. These feminists couldn’t hold a candle to women like my grandmother. Those women were true tough guys compared to the weak, entitled, cry baby victims that populate the western world today, and even they knew that their men were shouldering the heaviest loads.

Bewildered

See how the oppression played out in the bad old days where the women would constantly yell out in despair from the gulags created by men to enslave them!

Just read through the thread, some very thoughtful responses there Erin.

http://shiningpearlsofsomething.blogspot.com Suzanne McCarley

Boobzie published a classic hissy fit. Retarded pig.

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

When you’re down to attacking someone like this, you’ve one beyond the point of scum to being the stuff below the scum that feeds off the scum.

The hate that characterizes this guy’s work is self-evident; it’s one of the things that made me throw in with the men’s human rights movement full throttle. That kind of dishonesty and that kind of hate need to be fought.

http://shiningpearlsofsomething.blogspot.com Suzanne McCarley

He’s no longer even attempting to be coherent, and he doesn’t have to. A new reader would never know what principles he holds. Much of what he writes makes us look good and makes feminists look bad, and he doesn’t even care. He knows his audience is too emotionally unstable to think critically; that’s the audience he needs. I honestly think his goal is to manipulate them by shocking and upsetting them, then comforting them and “protecting” them. They are dependent on him; he works hard to keep it that way, and I think he no longer cares what anyone else thinks. He’s a sadistic sociopath who preys on his pathetic cult followers.

http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

I think it’s basically a growing frenzy for him and his followers, very much like the “end times” cultists who just double down on their crazy when their prophet fails. He knows he’s in the wrong, so do many of his followers, but they can’t bring themselves to admit it, so they have to shout louder and louder and get more and more frenzied to prove they just have to be right. Their hysteria will only grow and grow and grow. They’ve been wrong about all of it and they can’t do anything but scream to make sure they don’t have to contemplate that they’ve marginalized the abused, lionzed abusers, and have been slandering and attacking people who are asking for fundamental human rights and decency.

It’s an old pattern, really. It’s going to be sad for them 10 years out, it really is.

malcolm

Lol, I don’t even pay attention to that irrelevant little site any more, it’s just an online manifestation of David Futrelle’s penis envy and a place for his brainless followers to post kitten videos.

Denis

@Paul,

You’re other option is to set up a moderated debate about AVfM policy on domestic violence.

Why would I do that? The point here was not whether you or Dean or Kristina was right or wrong. I don’t even know what the issues are that were in question.

My issue was with you telling people here that you were going to systematically follow them around looking for what you disagree with and going after it like you were going to use the comments of this website as a personal crusade against the ideas put forth by them.

I remind you that Dean is Managing Editor here and Kristina is also an editor and news reporter. It is not that I would react to your post that much differently than I would if you treated anyone else that way, but the fact is that both of them put in a lot of work here that you don’t. I think that earns them a lot more respect than you are showing.

I have no issue with you stating your beliefs, because unlike your silly insinuation, this is not an echo chamber.

But this is an activist operation, with volunteers that sacrifice a lot for nothing more in return than the satisfaction of what they do. I think you ought to at least respect that enough to comport yourself better than you have in this thread.

I don’t offer them or anyone else here, including myself, exemption from scrutiny or dissent. But if you were being honest you would admit that there is a big difference between disagreement and the stunt you threatened to pull.

I like you, Denis. I have enjoyed your comments for a long time now. But I won’t abide by the staff being disrespected in this way.

Denis

Why would you do that?

Maybe because you have a high profile domestic violence policy adviser, but no policy.

The stunt I threatened to pull off is a challenge to debate. I will continue challenging those giving men such very bad advice, everywhere and anywhere.

If you ban me for doing so, it will be all the proof I need that this site has become nothing more than an ideological echo chamber.

I gave Dean and Kristina opportunities for an adult discussion, but they destroyed any chance of trust and respect with their dishonesty.

We are against it and our focus is and always has been on opposing sexual bias in current DV policy.

Maybe you did not get the memo.

Now that we have dispensed with that, I will also dispense with your attempting to railroad me into doing anything.

I will watch your actions. The next time you appear to be threatening, in any way, to staff members or other readers here, I will happily shitcan your IP. You will then be free to whine about it wherever you want to except here.

In the meantime, I suggest you get off your lazy, ignorant ass and start actually doing something more constructive than this petty, infantile bullshit.

You are a commenter, Denis, not an activist. If you want a bigger voice, saddle up and ride into some work.

I have nothing else to say to you, save the fact that I will not tolerate one more insult from you, either.

http://www.woolybumblebee.com/about Kristina Hansen

“I gave Dean and Kristina opportunities for an adult discussion, but they destroyed any chance of trust and respect with their dishonesty.”
I will not have a debate here, however I am going to clarify this once and then leave it.

I was having an adult discussion with you and was them told to ‘f’-off, by you. Just because you may not agree with my approach to a certain situation (in which the goal posts were moved several times) does not give you the right to come in here and make me, and Dean, look like the bad guys when all you have done is quote mine and misrepresent what actually was said on Reddit. I never advocated for men to get arrested, nor anything similar. Your misrepresentation of our conversation is dishonest and I am quite disappointed in the way you attempted to smear me here just because I did not agree with you on another forum.

I will not address this issue further here, and I shall consider the issue now closed. This is not the place for this type of discussion. Thank you!

Aimee McGee

Denis, I’ve kept quiet until now on this topic but your stance riles me.
No one size solution fits any one situation – my Beloved followed to the letter collecting evidence before leaving and he has been completely fucked over by the courts…because the courts in his jurisdiction believe kids don’t lie and when the kids were asked if they were afraid of their mother, they lied.
It helps of course that they are nice white middle class educated people, so by default both are rational human beings. It also helps his ex is a cunning sociopath, who has fooled lots of folks.
The only policy we need is one of non-violence, but sometimes that will still lead to ‘a choice between the lesser of two evils’, and in some circumstances, that is to walk away. Beloved and I have to hope his girls will some day break away from their mother and come asking questions.

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